See This Picture? Russia Hoped This Fighter Jet Would Be a Game-Changer. It Failed.

Mark Episkopos

Security,

Meet the Su-47. 

Key Point: The Su-47 serves as a powerful reminder of the many twists and turns on Russia’s long road to a serially-produced fifth-generation fighter. 

At the Zhukovsky International Airport outside Moscow, Russia, MAKS 2019 air show attendees were treated to a rare piece of Russian military aviation history: the Su-47, a fascinating but flawed testbed for cutting-edge 1990’s fighter technology. 

Not seen since MAKS 2007, the Su-47 Berkut (“Golden Eagle”) was put on static display as part of a coterie of experimental Russian aircraft to be shown at Zhukovsky Airport. the Aviationist’s Tom Demerly captured footage of the Su-47 being hauled to its designated display site, while Russian media provided additional closeups of the fighter.

Conceived in 1983 as a sweeping modernization program for Russia’s prolific Su-27 air superiority fighter, the “Su-37”-- as it was known before being renamed in the following decade-- was an exercise in ambitious aircraft design.

Berkut’s main attraction is its unorthodox forward-swept wings, a feature it shares with only one other known aircraft, the US Grumman X-29.

The core idea is ingeniously simple: On a rear-swept configuration, air naturally moves from the wing root to the wingtip. Sukhoi technicians theorized that funneling air from the wingtip to the wing root--that is,  inverting the wings-- would lead to extreme gains in maneuverability, enable a shorter minimum takeoff and landing distance, and provide significant performance advantages in dogfights at high angles of attack. Additionally, relocating the wing spar to was thought to create more internal space.